Noun phrase in Nigerian Pidgin English

Abstract

Works showing the extent to which structural complexity characterizes syntactic structures in contemporary Nigerian Pidgin English are underrepresented in the main literature. For instance no works have shown the extent to which noun phrase (NP), an important syntactic measure of variability and complexity, exhibits variability and complexity, and the extent to which pattern found converges with /diverges from similar linguistic varieties. The present study provides the basic corpus-driven contemporary nature of simple-complex NP structures in NPE, including how factors such as syntactic function and weight explain context where we might find simple or complex NPs. Our results, though tentative, show that NPs in NPE exhibit considerable complexity, which is against simplification hypothesis exemplified in standard Nigerian English.

Keywords

• noun phrase
• Nigerian Pidgin English
• variability
• simplicity
• complexity
• syntactic function